Can I contact landlord directly to negotiate rent increase?

[creamedcustard]

The estate agent who acts for the landlord has informed me the landlord wishes to put up my rent in the next tenancy period.
I have some room for negotiation and am wondering if it's better to reach out to the landlord directly (I've never been given his contact details, but can find them online) and ask if he'd consider setting up as a private landlord without the agent acting on commission, as he could get more of the rent amount that way. I know agents sort out the daffy admin and legal stuff the landlord probably doesn't want to deal with, but I'm a long-standing tenant and it'd be a hopefully straightforward renewal of rental agreement. It seems win-win to me, and I wouldn't have to pay as much as the agent is proposing.
Is this bad tenant etiquette? Grateful to hear thoughts on my best approach.

I'm a landlord. I think a good one. Part of that involves employing a professional managing agent so that requests are responded to quickly and professionally. That is worth paying for. You would be asking your landlord to take on more work (arranging repairs etc) so that you could pay less money. It would be a hard no from me.

Don't. Ll knows they can do it privately but prefer to let ea do it. If you stalk your ll online and contact them I bet they ask you to leave. There sadly too many looking for rental properties and not enough properties. I've rented for over 15 years and only ever gone through ea unless ll wanted contact

When we rented our house out we used an agent.
This was a deliberate choice that cost us money.
We didn't want to liaise directly with the tenant.

If the tenant contacted us directly about standard tenant issues like rent costs we would just have directed them back to the agents, but I wouldn't have been impressed by the behavior.

Your contract and your lines of communication are via the agent, not the landlord.

Don't be a cheeky fucker.

There is also a lot of administrative work, new legislation all the time. Formal checks that need compliance, these change over time.
I wanted to pay a professional to manage these not have to manage them myself so they were done properly.

I'm not sure about other UK law, but in England, you definitely have the right to obtain your landlord's details. They prefer you generally don't speak to them, but that doesn't mean you can't...

From Shelter:

The tenant can make a written request for the landlord's name and address from the:

• landlord's agent
• person who demands, or last received, the rent

This information must be provided in writing within 21 days. Address means the landlord's place of residence or place of business or, in the case of a company, its registered office.

If the landlord is a company, the tenant can make a written request for the names and addresses of the company's directors and the company secretary. The request can be made to the:

• landlord (the company)
• landlord's agent
• person who demands, or last received, the rent

This information must be provided in writing within 21 days of the written request.

There is a penalty for a failure, without reasonable excuse, to provide the information as set out above. The landlord, agent or rent collector, as appropriate, can be prosecuted by the local authority and a fine of up to £2,500 can be imposed in the magistrates court.

I think it would piss the LL off, tbh. If they wanted to deal with tenants, they wouldn't employ an agent to do it for them.

Nothing wrong with asking the agent to put your proposal to the LL though.

I was a landlord. I used a Letting Agency.
My house was being rented at £475/month.
I never put it up but I did lower it once to £450 when the Letting Agency asked to.
I used to pay 10% + VAT for the agent to vet and manage my property.
So £47/month + VAT
There's no way if I had wanted to charge £500/month that I'd have bypassed the agent to keep a tenant.

1. They required notice
2. There would have been a finder's fee for the tenant
3. There would be no benefit to me but the opposite as the agency sort out the leaks, the burst pipes, the unpaid rent etc

Sorry OP. You either tell the EA what you can afford and ask them to pass that onto the LL - if your upper limit means they absorb some costs to keep you, they might - like I did once for a tenant. Or you pay it or you give notice.

If you contacted me personally, I would also have told you no can do and to liaise with the agent in future. Not nastily but just because that's what I wanted. I'd have let the Agent know though so it depends on how good your relationship is with them, whether you want to damage it by trying to cut them out. It shouldn't affect you directly but if the EA has a workman to go out to your and another property at the same time...